TL;DR Subscription DTC brands need a different dashboard than one-time purchase brands. Track MRR, churn rate, expansion revenue, subscriber cohorts, and LTV:CAC — then visualise it in a way that drives action. We build these dashboards.
Subscription Ecommerce Is a Different Game
If you sell subscriptions — coffee, supplements, skincare, pet food, meal kits — your analytics needs are fundamentally different from a one-time purchase brand.
In one-time-purchase ecommerce, the question is: “How do we get the next sale?” In subscription ecommerce, the question is: “How do we keep the customer we already have?”
Retention dominates. A 5% improvement in monthly churn rate compounds into dramatically higher LTV over 12 months. But most subscription brands track the same dashboards as everyone else — revenue, AOV, conversion rate. These metrics don’t capture the subscription engine.
You need a subscription-specific dashboard.
The Core Subscription Metrics
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
MRR is your heartbeat. It’s the sum of all active subscription revenue normalised to a monthly figure.
Break it down into components:
| MRR Component | Definition |
|---|---|
| New MRR | Revenue from subscriptions started this month |
| Expansion MRR | Revenue from upgrades (more items, higher tier) |
| Contraction MRR | Revenue lost from downgrades |
| Churned MRR | Revenue lost from cancellations |
| Reactivation MRR | Revenue from returning subscribers |
| Net New MRR | New + Expansion - Contraction - Churned + Reactivation |
Net New MRR is the single most important number. Positive means you’re growing. Negative means you’re shrinking. Everything else is context.
Churn Rate
Two types — track both:
Logo churn: Percentage of subscribers who cancel in a given month. Formula: Cancelled subscribers / Starting subscribers.
Revenue churn: Percentage of MRR lost. More accurate because it weights high-value subscribers appropriately.
| Churn Level | Monthly Logo Churn | Annual Retention |
|---|---|---|
| Excellent | <3% | >70% |
| Good | 3-5% | 55-70% |
| Concerning | 5-8% | 40-55% |
| Critical | >8% | <40% |
Note: DTC subscription churn is structurally higher than SaaS. A 5% monthly churn rate is decent for a subscription box brand. Don’t compare yourself to Netflix.
Expansion Revenue
Are existing subscribers spending more over time? Track:
- Percentage of subscribers who added items this month
- Average subscription value over time (by cohort)
- Upgrade rate vs. downgrade rate
If expansion revenue exceeds contraction + churn, you have negative net revenue churn — the holy grail. Your existing base grows itself.
LTV:CAC for Subscribers
Subscriber LTV calculation is different from one-time purchase LTV:
Subscriber LTV = Average Monthly Revenue x Average Subscriber Lifespan
Or more precisely: Monthly revenue / Monthly churn rate.
If your average subscriber pays $45/month and your monthly churn is 5%, LTV = $45 / 0.05 = $900.
Your LTV:CAC ratio determines how aggressively you can acquire. Above 3:1 means you can scale confidently.
Subscriber Cohort Analysis
Group subscribers by sign-up month and track:
- What percentage are still active at month 1, 3, 6, 12?
- When do most cancellations happen?
- Which acquisition channels produce the longest-lived subscribers?
A typical DTC subscription retention curve:
| Month | Retention Rate |
|---|---|
| 1 | 85% |
| 2 | 72% |
| 3 | 63% |
| 6 | 48% |
| 12 | 32% |
The steepest drop is always months 1-3. If you can get a subscriber past month 3, they’re 2-3x more likely to make it to month 12.
Dashboard Design
Your subscription dashboard needs five sections:
Section 1: MRR Overview
- Current MRR (big number)
- MRR growth waterfall (new, expansion, contraction, churn)
- MRR trend line (trailing 12 months)
Section 2: Churn Analysis
- Monthly churn rate (logo and revenue)
- Churn by reason (survey data if available)
- Churn by cohort month (when do people leave?)
- Involuntary vs. voluntary churn (payment failures vs. cancellations)
Section 3: Subscriber Cohorts
- Retention curve (all cohorts overlaid)
- Cohort comparison table (retention at month 3, 6, 12)
- Best/worst performing cohort highlights
Section 4: Unit Economics
- LTV:CAC ratio (trending)
- CAC payback period in months
- Contribution margin per subscriber
Section 5: Leading Indicators
- Skip rate (subscribers pausing deliveries)
- Support ticket volume per subscriber
- Product rating trends
- Engagement metrics (login frequency, customisation activity)
💡 This is what we do. We build subscription analytics dashboards for DTC brands — MRR tracking, churn analysis, subscriber cohorts, all in Looker Studio connected to BigQuery. Fully managed in our cloud, delivered in ~3 weeks. Book a 20-minute discovery call — no pitch, just scoping.
The Technical Build
Data Sources
For Shopify-based subscription brands (using Recharge, Bold, Skio, etc.):
- Subscription platform API — subscriber status, plan details, cancellation dates
- Shopify — order revenue, products, customer data
- Payment processor — failed payments, retries, recovery
- Ad platforms — spend data for CAC calculation
Architecture
Fivetran extracts data from all sources into BigQuery daily. SQL models calculate:
- MRR components from subscription event data
- Cohort assignments from first subscription date
- Churn calculations with proper date logic
- LTV projections based on observed retention curves
Looker Studio visualises everything with drill-down filters: by plan, by product, by acquisition channel, by geography.
Actions That Move the Needle
Reducing Churn
| Churn Pattern | Intervention |
|---|---|
| High month-1 churn | Fix onboarding experience, set expectations |
| Involuntary churn >2% | Implement dunning flows, card retry logic |
| Churn spike at month 3 | Introduce surprise/delight at month 2 |
| Seasonal churn patterns | Offer pause instead of cancel |
| Post-price-increase churn | Grandfather existing, or phase increases |
Driving Expansion
- Offer add-on products after month 2 (once trust is built)
- Create tiered plans with clear upgrade paths
- Use consumption data to recommend upgrades (“You’re running low before your next delivery”)
Improving LTV:CAC
If LTV:CAC is below 3:1, you have two levers:
- Reduce churn (improve LTV)
- Reduce acquisition cost (improve CAC)
The dashboard tells you which lever to pull. If churn is high, no amount of acquisition optimisation fixes the unit economics.
Common Subscription Analytics Mistakes
Counting one-time purchases as subscription revenue. Keep subscription MRR separate from one-time order revenue. Blending them hides subscription health.
Ignoring involuntary churn. Payment failures account for 20-40% of all subscription churn. A good dunning flow recovers 30-50% of failed payments. This is free money.
Measuring churn on too-short windows. Weekly churn metrics are noisy. Monthly is the right cadence. Look at 3-month rolling averages for trends.
Not segmenting by plan or product. Your protein powder subscribers might retain twice as long as your supplement subscribers. Aggregate churn hides this.
At Chartica, we’ve built subscription dashboards for 20+ teams across London and beyond. The pattern is consistent: brands that see their subscription metrics clearly make better retention decisions and grow faster.
Know someone drowning in spreadsheets? Share this guide with them.
If this sounds like more work than you want to take on, that’s what we do at Chartica. Book a 20-minute discovery call — we’ll scope it out, no pitch.